Advanced VR brings back the question — are we in a Simulation?
Have a look at the above picture. Can you tell if its from a virtual world or a real one?
I know you must be laughing at me by now. Looking at the above picture, anyone can easily say that it is a virtual environment. The image looks nowhere like a real world. However, what about the next picture?
Well, I am sure you must have had a little more struggle in correctly identifying the nature of the image. Let me tell you upfront that it is an image generated using Unreal Engine software and I have borrowed it from Google Images. But do you see the kind of maturity in the environment design in the second image?
This is where the question of our universe being a simulation gains further ground. Just imagine that if we have been able to create virtual words which look so similar to our real world, will humans be able to distinguish between real and simulated environments in the future? As the technology is advancing, it is getting all the more difficult to tell what’s genuine and what’s fake.
And if you think that humans will still be able to correctly point out virtual worlds because digital worlds are kind of static in their interactions, let me tell you buddy that it is no longer the case. With the rise of ChatGPT and Large Language Models, game designers are putting brain and voice inside their in-game characters. Do you know Nvidia has launched ACE for Games which is an AI model foundry service, and it brings game characters to life by enabling them to talk and express emotions. Using natural language conversation, text-to-speech / speech-to-text capabilities and audio-to-facial-expression, these game characters can talk.
Yes, game characters can talk dynamically now!
So tomorrow, when you — or say, your grandkids — will wear a headset and get transported to a metaverse, they may not realize any difference between their real world and their made-up virtual world. They may find a seamless continuity between the two worlds, or they may customize their virtual world so much with their own rules and policies, that they may like to stay there itself and almost forget who they are in a world they have been born in.
Which brings us back to the question that if we can have a simulation so real that we cannot perceive its difference from the real world, is it possible that we are already living in one, and our true identity is someone different in a world that we have closed our eyes to?
I am not arguing about processor speed of the simulation, the other characters and glitches today — that’s a topic for another day. But, it is worth wondering if our world around is real, or is it something that our true self has created for itself so well that we just do not remember our way back into the actual real world outside the simulation.
What do you think we are in? A simulation by any chance?
